Fingers
by Dr Spleenmeister
Summary: SPOILERS AHOY! Stuck in the Mirror universe, Burnham must protect her crew while finding a way to work with the Lorca she thought she knew.
1. Fingers

A/N: This moment sprang out at me during the episode 'Despite Yourself', and it brewed a tiny plot bunny that required expanding. I may take this further depending on how the series plays out (I am LOVING Discovery BTW! It's awesome!) as I keep finding myself shipping Burnham and Lorca while watching the show...

* * *

 **Fingers**

Dr Spleenmeister

A firm hand on his shoulder urged him to his knees on the deck, and as the shock of impact vibrated through his joints Lorca did his best to look pitiable; it would not do for him to show any sign of confidence in front of his soon-to-be jailers, not if the plan was going to work and his crew were going to get out of here in one piece.

The hologram projector flickered and as his pretend captor addressed the Empire officer with convincing affectation, Lorca unexpectedly felt possessive fingers curl into his hair. Schooling his features into pained neutrality, he fought the urge to both raise an eyebrow at the possessive touch, and - surprisingly - turn into the inadvertent caress. Burnham was just playing her part, he knew that, but the knowledge did little to assuage the unanticipated flicker of a shiver down his spine.

Just as it would not do to show confidence, it would certainly not do to display any kind of regard for his captor, so he forced himself to focus on the dull throbbing in his forehead, the cut he had inflicted in the turbolift oozing sticky blood down his temple; he forced himself to focus on the metal of the cuffs digging into his wrists, bound between his knees; he forced himself to focus on the verbal sparring happening above his head…

Fingernails grazed lightly across his scalp.

Oh dear.

He forced himself NOT to focus on the effect that the fingernails were having on him; forced himself to ignore the goosebumps now prickling the flesh of his neck despite the completely inappropriate situation; forced himself to-

The questing fingertips slipped to his neck and dipped ever so slightly into the collar of his jacket.

His breath quickened.

He swallowed.

Shit.


	2. Give

A/N: Okay, so this has become a little bit more than a Drabble... just a little.

* * *

 **Give**

Dr Spleenmeister

"In exchange for my crew I offer you…me."

She may as well have shot him in the gut with a phaser canon; his heart forgot how to beat, his ears rang, he practically vibrated with heightened awareness of her in reaction to her submission. A slow, measured breath and a faint facial flicker was the only outward sign of his inward response.

He felt Landry's questioning, suspicious eyes on him but he couldn't look away from Michael.

All that he had wanted when he appeared in the wrong universe was to get back and continue his quest for power. Michael had been all but forgotten as he worked on getting home; but when chance threw her into his path again, he found himself with an interesting diversion. He had been playing a long, slow game in winning her to his side and it looked like his patience had been rewarded.

He'd had a plan for his universe's Michael and it was just a matter of time now, for him to take this Michael and slot her into place. She must have noticed his expression, as her expression shuttered into badly disguised innocent panic and she stated,

"I offer you my mind, nothing else."

' _Nothing else for now_ ' his mind finished darkly.


	3. Nothing New

**Fingers**

Dr Spleenmeister

Nothing New

It wasn't as though he'd changed. He was still the Lorca she knew, still the Lorca she respected; nothing had really changed beyond the context in which she now found him.

It wasn't as though she was an angel either. Her hands were just as stained as his, she'd slain two people with a blade in her hand; she wasn't just a mutineer, she was a killer.

The Discovery had been disabled and impounded, he'd spared her crew just as he promised, but he'd said nothing about letting them return to their own universe. While the crew languished in the Charon's brig, Burnham was assigned her own quarters. She'd managed to secure the safety of this universe's Saru by having him assigned to her personal staff, but she hadn't been able to save the former Emperor Georgiou; Lorca had dispatched her by her own sword, and the self-serving Stamets had been angrily disintegrated by the ever trigger-happy Landry. The Discovery native to this universe was still out there somewhere, captained by Tilly and policing the quadrant with its customary veil of extreme prejudice.

Michael Burnham sat on the edge of her bunk, her elbows braced on her knees and her hands hanging loosely as she slowly twirled _her_ Philippa Georgiou's Starfleet insignia through her fingers.

She sighed.

"… Mother…"

Slave Saru was intently working at the console on her desk, she'd given him access to the encrypted data archives to see if he'd have any luck finding more on the Defiant - she trusted her own Saru and his instincts implicitly, consequently something told her she could do the same with this one. The door chimed, startling her from her quiet, mournful reverie and Slave Saru moved to answer it.

When the door slid open to reveal Lorca, he didn't even blink in surprise at seeing the Kelpien there; he knew Burnham well enough to know that she would try to influence and protect any familiar face that she could while she was here. Lorca entered the room and politely asked the taller man to give them some privacy. Slave Saru nodded genteelly and gracefully vacated the guest quarters.

Burnham didn't bother to look up at him as he approached, she knew he wasn't here to do harm; not this time anyway. As he moved towards her she didn't hear the tell tale squeak of his leather jacket and she knew he'd changed back into his blues. He himself didn't know why he found the Starfleet uniform so comforting, it seemed so alien in this universe, and on this ship, but he'd decided to run with it for now.

Her gaze remained fixed and unseeing on the small piece of gold compound in her hands.

"I miss her."

The mattress depressed as Lorca lowered himself to sit beside her. One strong, calloused hand closed gently over hers, covering the badge from view. She braced herself for a scathing report of why she shouldn't lament the loss of a true tyrant.

"I know."

She did look up at him then, unshed tears shining in her eyes as she searched his for the signs of deception that she expected to find there now.

She came up short.

A male arm came up to support her shoulders and ease her into a masculine embrace as she bit hard into her lower lip. She couldn't cry in front of him; she wouldn't. As she buried her face into the blue and gold of the uniform she knew so well, and her nostrils filled with the familiar scent of him, she felt the wall of resistance that she'd thrown up when handing herself over to him, crack.

* * *

Bodies moved in the darkness.

A sigh, a groan, a yelp of pleasure.

Completion was achieved but it felt dirty and wrong, something had changed and something was missing.

Lorca rolled out of the sweaty bed with a growl and scrubbed his hands over his face. What was he doing?

Dressing quickly in his blue uniform and without a backward glance at his barely sated lover, he stalked from the room.

She pulled herself upright into a seating position in the bed, breathing heavily and watching him go.

Ellen Landry narrowed her eyes in anger; somebody was going to swing.


	4. Echoes

**Echoes**

Dr Spleenmeister

 _Universal law is for lackeys, context is for kings._ Lorca's words had been dancing around in the back of Michael's mind ever since the body of the Emperor had been removed from the Charon's throne room; he was in charge now, but she knew him too well to accept that this would be it for him. He had to be constantly moving forward, striving for his next win, so sitting down and ruling would soon lose its shine.

With that complacency would come the drop in his guard that she was waiting for.

While she bided her time, Michael had been working a slow manipulation on her former captain, which had seen the release of her crew from the brig and a reinstatement of some to useful posts. Those not yet assigned to a mission (the Charon wasn't exactly a science vessel) were doing what they could to quietly prepare for a return to Discovery.

Along with the inevitable restlessness in Lorca there was something else that Michael had already clocked as a weightin her favour for when the time came: he kept wearing the uniform. She had overheard Landry giving him the third degree over why he was so reluctant to take it off, especially considering that his followers all bore the black armour he had introduced to unify them in the first place. His response was always terse and along the lines of him being able to do whatever the hell he wanted and if she didn't like it there was no reason for her to continue to serve on his flagship. She usually growled something coarse in reply before stalking away with a murderous glare at the nearest Starfleet officer.

Something there had changed, Michael had noticed; Lorca no longer watched Landry walk across the room while they were working, he now watched _her_. His attention had started to make the hairs on the back of her neck prickle, and to her horror she had found herself beginning to enjoy the sensation. It had been a while now since Voq had been revealed and subsequently incarcerated - something that she still held mixed feelings toward Saru about, as she had wanted to space the villain for good, not have him snatched back to safety as soon as the executory transport was complete - and being admired was empowering. Landry had stopped visiting Lorca at night if their snappish behaviour towards each other was any indicator and, even though Michael was working at a tangent to him, she was oddly flattered to be the object of lust for the most powerful man in the quadrant.

Flattery would get him nowhere though.

Michael knew that Landry's position in Lorca's bed was not the only thing that the other woman was angry about losing, she was also on the verge of losing her position at his right hand. Lorca had stated very early in their acquaintance that he admired Michael's kind of thinking, it was what he wanted beside him, and despite what had happened in the meantime the sentiment still stood. Herein lay the danger, for despite her lifetime of Vulcan training and discipline she still had an ego, and his mastery of manipulation in this area left her vulnerable. She had offered him her mind only, but his foot was in the door and if he played her just so he would have his way and he would have her.

All of her.


	5. Drone

**Drone**

Dr Spleenmeister

"She's a fucking psycho."

Michael's eyebrows hiked into her hairline at Tilly's blunt observation of their current security chief. Ellen Landry was certainly down the line and to the point, but a psychopath? Really?

"That's a little extreme, Tilly."

Tilly snorted derisively and bent her head to resume her task; as the light from the mycelium mapping screen illuminated her pale features, she elaborated on her opening statement.

"When you talk to as many people as I do, you hear a thing or two; this crew, his followers, they like to stab each other in the back, figuratively as well as literally. She and Lorca were entangled before he disappeared, when this universe's Michael was sent after him, but it wasn't the kind of relationship that normal people have."

Michael frowned, "They were… what? Not a couple?"

Tilly shook her head, dislodging a ginger curl; she tucked it behind her ear.

"From what I can tell she loved him, but in the way that a prisoner falls for their captor, even though she wasn't his prisoner. Supposedly he recognised this blind, twisted devotion as something he could control." She grimaced, "And boy, did he control it."

Horror slowly twisted through Michael's gut. "What do you mean?"

Taking a second to switch display modes and cluck her tongue crossly at the lag in the system's processor, Tilly continued. "She had lost her husband to Empire forces when they raided his laboratory, so when she came to join Lorca's campaign she was freshly heartbroken and very lost. He used her grief as a tool and conditioned her into a killing machine. She'll kill anyone he asks her to and she won't bat an eyelid." She looked up from her display and met Michael's shocked eyes. "She _belongs_ to him, Michael."

When she finally found her voice, Michael could only whisper, "She's a slave."

Tilly nodded. "A drone is probably a more apt description; she's free to leave whenever she wants to, but she won't. She's slaved into his system, he remade her when she was broken and she'll stay loyal to him until she dies or is killed."

"No wonder she's been acting like she wants to strangle any of us who get too close to Lorca."

Tilly snorted again. "Us?"

Michael bristled at the implication. "What's that supposed to mean?"

A single ginger eyebrow raised while her eyes remained fixed to her display. "Michael, you must have noticed the way he's been looking at you; everybody else has."

Michael deflated. "It's that obvious? I thought it was just me that had caught him looking. I made it clear when I brokered our deal with him that this-" she gestured at her torso "-was off limits."

Tilly barked a laugh. "How long have you worked for him, Michael? You know by now that he doesn't take no for an answer. He didn't suddenly morph into another person when we came here you know, he's still the same Gabriel Lorca we all flew for under the Federation's banner." She shrugged, "You never know, maybe he picked up some of our better habits in our universe, he was there for quite a while after all, and even the most determined despot couldn't maintain the air of civility that our ways demand."

Michael sank down into a chair, deep in thought; so deep that she missed Tilly's murmured praise for Paul Stamet's genius.


	6. Tactics

**Tactics**

Dr Spleenmeister

Sitting at the far end of the conference table in the Charon's strategy room, Michael tapped the back of her index finger against her closed lips, deep in thought. Around her, generals and captains were squabbling while Lorca held court over them all, steadying the boat and firm at the helm. She had no part to play in the proceedings happening around her, she was simply permitted to observe as representative of the _Discovery_ crew (even away from the yoke of the Empire the Terrans couldn't get over their xenophobia enough to recognise Saru as a leader); this afforded her a rare opportunity to just _watch_ her former captain.

He was magnificent.

She didn't want to admit the thought to herself in light of what she had learned from Tilly, but she couldn't ignore her hard-wired Vulcan logic which was telling her in no uncertain terms that this man was to be admired as a true tactician.

Seated to his right, Landry watched her watching him; her face was cool and expressionless, but her eyes were drilling a hole through Michael's head. Michael ignored the other woman and continued her perusal of the leader before her.

He was on his feet, clean and groomed and visibly raised above the rest of them as he hammered his point home. "We have enemies, and that's good; it means we've stood up for something we believe in. It does not follow that just because we dispatched the Emperor her enemies will follow us; the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, they're just another enemy."

He made brief, fleeting eye contact with Michael and she felt her heart thud with adrenaline in response.

She ignored it.

He opened his hands towards the assembled leaders, "Success is not final, we must go forth as a united front if we are going to build something that will last." There was a surprised murmur that hummed around the table; Terrans didn't usually work well together but that was what had set Lorca's uprising apart in the first place, he had an uncanny knack of unifying very disparate people. "We all went through Hell, ladies and gentlemen, but we kept going and we came out the other side. If we can take that strength and determination to succeed and forge it into a driving force, we can conquer anything."

General Kuznetsova spoke up in her heavily accented husk and all eyes turned to her, "We heard that you'd gone native while you were away." The eyes all swivelled towards Michael, who fought to maintain a neutral expression under the collective scrutiny. "What say you to this, Lorca?"

Lorca didn't look away from Kuznetsova. He smirked. "A lie can get half way around the quadrant before the truth has chance to get its pants on." He made a show of moving one hand to the dagger sheathed at his hip. The general looked to Landry, who simply raised an eyebrow in response.

Kuznetsova smiled a greasy smile, "Of course. My family's weapons works are at your disposal, as always."

Lorca nodded and returned his hand to a bracing position on the tabletop as he leaned forward and commanded the attention of the room once again.

"I do not require any of you to swear fealty, that much is anticipated on trust otherwise you would not be in this room now." A few chests visibly puffed out in pride at this acknowledgement of their importance. "I simply ask that you keep The _Charon_ informed of your progress in rallying those scattered by the Empire to OUR cause." Heads nodded, smiles were exchanged.

Michael was impressed. As everyone filed out of the room, Landry leading the assembly back to the shuttle bay, Michael hung back to walk with Lorca as they returned to the habitation deck.

"When you asked me to sit in on this meeting I had an idea of what to expect," she looked up at him and met his gaze, "I didn't expect _that_."

He gave her the twisted smile she had become so accustomed to on _Discovery_. "You were expecting tearing of throats, rending of limbs, that sort of thing?"

She chuckled, and at the back of her mind she marvelled at the fact that it had been _him_ who made her laugh for the first time since _Discovery_ had been impounded. "I will admit, all the Terrans I've had dealings with so far had pretty much set that expectation for me, yes."

He murmured, " _Almost_ all the Terrans."

She didn't reply.

"How are Stamets and Tilly coming on with the spore drive's piloting problem? I'd like to have my engineers make more progress on integrating the drive's specs into the _Charon_ before you attempt your escape."

Michael kept her face dead neutral. "What escape attempt?"

He snorted. "Michael, don't sport with my intelligence, I know you're looking for a way home. I'm perfectly happy for the crew to return to your universe once our own spore setup has been adapted from power system to drive system."

This time she made no attempt to hide her shock, and she stared at him agape. "You'll let us go?"

He smiled sadly. "You know what my Michael Burnham meant to me, but I don't expect you to take her place. I gave your drive system crew space to work so they could get home and out of my hair; they're a distraction to my people and the longer they stay the more questions are asked."

Michael squared her jaw and took a mad gamble, "You could just kill us all."

He raised an incredulous eyebrow, knowing full well that she didn't really think he'd do such a despicable thing. "Michael… please."

She shrugged self consciously, and mumbled, "I had to be sure."

"Our Stamets made this ship into a ticking time bomb, I'd like to keep it from killing me if I can. My best people are trying to turn the system around, but he did a real number on it." He grimaced, "It needs a Stamets to fix it."


End file.
